So, ‘Tiger King’ Rival Carole Baskin’s Husband Might Not Be Dead After All

Due to the pandemic hitting just before the show’s release, Tiger King became a wild phenomenon thanks to millions of people having nothing better to do than obsess over the Netflix docuseries. Part of that obsession included amateur detectives and online sleuths hounding animal activist Carole Baskin over the disappearance of her husband, Don Lewis. Despite Baskin being the target of a murder-for-hire plot that landed Tiger King star Joe Exotic in prison, she was the subject of rumors regarding how Lewis mysteriously vanished in 1997. Lewis’ family even went so far as to take out an ad during Baskin’s Dancing with the Stars appearance demanding answers.

But then a funny thing happening. Netflix released Tiger King 2, which quietly revealed that, actually, Lewis has been alive this whole time. That revelation happened over a year ago, and Baskin only recently heard about it thanks to Tiger King 2 receiving very little attention. (She refused to participate in the follow-up and even tried to sue to stop its release.)

Via Sky News:

Reacting to the news on ITV’s This Morning, Baskin said: “One of the really exciting things that came out of Tiger King 2 is that they produced a letter from Homeland Security and it says that a special agent in charge with the FBI at Homeland Security reached out to the sheriff’s detective George Fernandez, which means this had to have happened after 2002, because Homeland Security wasn’t even around until 2002.

“And they said that my husband, Don Lewis, is alive and well in Costa Rica.”

According to Baskin, Lewis went to Costa Rica with $1 million, which she didn’t believe would last long. When he was reported missing, the animal activist revealed she was only able to recover a small amount of the million. More importantly, she’s happy to hear that law enforcement put a stop to the speculation that she killed him.

“It was only about $80,000 because the investments he had made were so bad,” Baskin said. “So I don’t know how it is that Homeland Security says he’s alive and well in Costa Rica but I’m glad to hear it.”